{
"data": {
"id": 162336,
"accession_number": "2002.65",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Alien Huddle, 1993\u201395. Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941). Red cedar, pine; overall: 134.6 x 162.5 x 134.6 cm (53 x 64 x 53 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, 2002.65. \u00a9 Martin Puryear, courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Alien Huddle",
"creation_date": "1993\u201395",
"creation_date_earliest": 1993,
"creation_date_latest": 1995,
"artists_tags": [
"Black American Artists",
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "red cedar, pine",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Contemporary Art",
"collection": "CONTEMP - Sculpture",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 134.6 x 162.5 x 134.6 cm (53 x 64 x 53 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 1.346,
"height_inch": 53,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 1.625,
"width_inch": 64,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"depth": 1.346,
"depth_inch": 53,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "\u00a9 Martin Puryear, courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 218996,
"title": "Martin Puryear",
"description": "Martin Puryear. Centre Cultural de la Fundacio Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, Spain (November 15, 1997-January 15, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1997-11-15T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 211092,
"title": "Martin Puryear",
"description": "Martin Puryear. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (organizer) (March 6-May 27, 2001); Miami Art Museum (June 22-August 19, 2001); Berkeley Art Center, CA (September 12-December 30, 2001); Des Moines Art Center (January 18-April 14, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2001-02-02T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 181802,
"title": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).",
"opening_date": "2006-06-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 174894,
"title": "Martin Puryear, 1993-95",
"description": "Martin Puryear, 1993-95. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (November 4, 2007-January 14, 2008); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX (February 24-May 18, 2008); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (June 22-September 28, 2008).",
"opening_date": "2007-11-04T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 393229,
"title": "Contemporary Installation",
"description": "Contemporary Installation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).",
"opening_date": "2021-04-12T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 662028,
"title": "Martin Puryear: Nexus",
"description": "Martin Puryear: Nexus. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (co-organizer) (September 27, 2025-February 8, 2026) https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/martin-puryear-nexus; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (April 12-August 9, 2026); High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (September 25, 2026-January 17, 2027).",
"opening_date": "2025-09-20T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Martin Puryear. Fundaci\u00f3n La Caixa, Madrid, Spain (November 15, 1997 - January 11, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1997-11-15T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Collection of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "(McKee Gallery, New York)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2002",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2002\u2013",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"315.1995"
],
"did_you_know": "Puryear seamlessly attached red cedar planks to the pine core without metal fixtures, a skill attributed to his training in furniture making, joinery, and woodworking.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "With its bulbous joined spheres made of pine and cedar, Alien Huddle reveals the close relationship between organic form and material that is emblematic of Martin Puryear's sculpture. A great breadth of aesthetic traditions informs his work, including modernist abstraction, Indigenous African crafts, boat building, and recent technology. Puryear brings these together to create a distinctive body of abstract work animated by cultural, social, and historical references.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60758293"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cMartin Puryear Sculpture Donated to Museum,\u201d June 25, 2002, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.",
"page_number": null,
"url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr4456"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 122",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum Masters: 2016-17 Companion Guide. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 25",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "De Becker, Laura. Beyond Borders: Global Africa. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2018.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 13-14, fig. 9",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Puryear, Martin, and John Elderfield. Martin Puryear. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007.",
"page_number": "Reproduced pgs. 148 and 166, Plate 34.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Puryear, Martin. Martin Puryear. Exh. Cat. Madrid, Spain: Fundaci\u00f3n La Caixa, 1997.",
"page_number": "Reproduced on cover and p. 100-01, no. 27.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 95, no. 136; mentioned p. 94 and 124.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Sparks, Amy and Rebecca Michaels, eds. African American Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 28; mentioned p. 20.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\u201cA Conversation with Martin Puryear.\u201d American Craft Council 1.1 (Spring 2006).",
"page_number": "Reproduced p. 8-9",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Joyce, Tom. \"Alien Huddle.\" In Martin Puryear: Nexus, edited by Emily Liebert, 66-67. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 66-67, fig. 17, cat. no. 30, cover",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Liebert, Emily. \u201cA Spring Exhibition Preview. Martin Puryear: Nexus.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 4 (2025): 9.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 9",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM-2025-04"
},
{
"citation": "Liebert, Emily. \u201cMartin Puryear: Nexus - Career Survey Explores Form, Material, and Making.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 66, no. 1 (2026): 4-7.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 5; Mentioned: p. 6",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM-2026-01"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2002.65",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 162336,
"creators": [
{
"id": 19502,
"description": "Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1941",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2002-06-03T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1993,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1993\u201395",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-09-25 05:00:58.178000"
}
}